May be Tempermental
by Reedthroughtheworld
Summary: It takes an independence streak that most fairies wouldn't even dream of to make an alchemist. Zarina has her hands full trying to keep some sort of control over her talent as more Alchemists form members of her group and her home becomes to small to contain the irreverent fairies she's supposed to lead.


A broken cry burst through the air. "She's gone."

"No, no, she can't be dead!" Another voice insisted.

But she's not the one this story is about.

A second blonde scurried through the room, ghosting the newborn who had been delivered through much suffering. The child barely was able to open its eyes before being forced to close them again by granite fingertips. It was only downstairs that the child was allowed to try and explore this new large world. In particular, her eyes drifted over a tan older teen who was watching her with a mix of heartbreak and hope. She flinched away from the intensity first, but returned her gaze to him when the grey walls and white paint irritated her. Instead, chocolate brown eyes met their match in someone who was just so intense.

But they aren't who the story is about either. It isn't about the girl or the mother who went through such pain to make her, nor is it about the teen whose heart was broken by the girl's mother, nor was it about any of the girl's family on her father's side. This story is about a laugh.

Most children laugh within a few months at most. Most of them are thrilled by some gentle breeze or quiet expression of their parents' love. A game of lifting or being carried might inspire a fast-flyer. A laugh forged of a love for a mother could control inner glow, inspiring sunbeams to shift. A laugh of tranquility might make a fairy with an affection for water, despite all of its risks. Tinkers have been formed out of a laugh infused with curiosity. A mobile could inspire the urge to make something similar, or a rattle the thrill of just putting things together. A pet could inspire an Animal Fairy, an understanding of what the creature wants and a delight in granting it. A dog might make someone who wanted to sooth the creatures, while a bird might make a fairy slightly more adventurous. A plant might inspire a Garden fairy, even though urbanization is lowering their numbers.

There were subvarieties to, but those were rare. The most common of those varieties happened when the breeze moved a laugh over to the winter woods. Winter would freeze water talents to glacier's maintainers, tinkerers into frost-fairies, and garden talents into snowflake-makers. A laugh over a kissed boo-boo might make a fairy who wanted to heal other's ailments. If a child was delighted about some food that they _should not be snuck,_ they might form a Cooking talent fairy who would stay in one off their own spaces and need to learn under a mentor to fill a position as needed. A witness to something might giggle up a scout-protector, or perhaps a bookkeeper, depending on the child's reaction. Dust-keepers were spawned from stories they were read, and there was another faction to them that had only recently been acknowledged…

We jump back to the newborn. Well, she's hardly a newborn anymore. This half-vampire was growing so fast that it wouldn't even be right to call them a toddler, for all that they were less than a year old. She stepped forward and was brave against the people who were skeptical of her origins. She told them that she had been born and she showed them how she had grown. When the enemies agreed to leave and all of her allies were heading back, a sound long delayed bubbled closer to the forefront than ever before. She had survived. Back in her room, looking into the backpack that her mother had packed for her to have if something went wrong, she looked at the letters that she would never have been expected to be the one to read. She read how her mother wanted her safe above even the woman's life, and she read about how she might have had a life of fear and running and escaping, but she would have lived even if her mother had not. With this final confirmation, something long delayed sprang forth. A laugh, sweetly tingling, erupted from her chest. It might not have been as innocent as most fairies started, but it had conviction. It was a laugh from a letter, a story of reality told to her.

This was the perfect timing for a fairy of conviction to the safety of others. Only four months prior had Alchemy gained its recognition as a talent separate from Dust keeping. Letters were so similar to books that they'd both react to the same stimulus. Their similarities included an affinity to seeing things through and a quiet reverence that was easily misplaced. Sure, there weren't many fairies who were formed like this, but this laugh would be one who was in the right place from the start. As it hitched a ride on a strand of hair, this laugh was able to steer away from the winters that had hindered their child. It went straight to the pixie dust tree, and it smiled at the power of the surroundings. Others were gathered. The Queen fluttered down from her normal place, and the heads of talent guilds, who made sure that such new ones found their place, became seated. Even the Lord of Winter, who was normally excluded from such events on account of only finding fairies under his domain who flew in there, happened to be nearby and thus stayed to watch the ceremony.

The dustkeeper on duty did his part in this old ritual, and the new fairy truly animated for the first time in her small existence. Spectators and passers bye didn't bother to contain their eagerness to join in this new spectacle, frightening the new girl. She slowly started to back away, but she bumped into the queen. This drew some chuckles, but this one was by no means the first fairy to do so. What was a little less expected was the newcomer's flinch away from a helping hand, but she got over her nervousness soon enough. Getting up, a few people started whispering about the girl's outfit. Some compared the bronze gleam of her two-fastener dress, with its strangely loose cut, to the flowy dress of the Queen over Pixie Hallow. The queen herself did not waste her time listening to such gossip, as a fairy's starter outfit was simply a matter of what was convenient to the laugh on its journey. Still, letting the name flow through her was easy. "Nessie." She addressed, and the girl turned to look at her. Yes, this was a new fairy to bolster their ranks. How she would help them, though, remained unknown.

That was what the affinity testing part of this ceremony was for. By sending the girl out to see what symbolic token of a talent resonated with her, she'd know where to go and who would best show her the ropes, as it were. Nessie cautiously stepped out and tried a few things. The hammer felt heavy when she tried to lift it, and the water frightened her too much to even try. A beam of light almost worked, but it dissipated a second later. The little gust of pollen dispersed before Nessie could get her hand on it, and the flower had her flinching back before she even realized what was going on. The next thing she passed, Pixie Dust, got a bit of a glisten. "Wait." The Queen commanded, startling a few people who hadn't heard of this trial being interrupted before. "Try the blue dust first."

Blue dust. It was the catalyst of everything regarding Pixie dust, and it worked wonders for the new talent. A year ago, Nessie would have never gotten a chance to touch it outside of her rotation at the dustkeeper's depo. This time, she got a chance to test herself against Alchemy. It worked. A light flashed, bright with understanding, and when it died down, Zarina hurried forward, ecstatic.

"You see! This is to a talent." Zarina muttered, elbowing Fairy Gary as she passed him. Bounding forward, Zarina was quick to grasp the new arrival's hand. "I'm the head of the Alchemists." She explained, smiling at Nessie. "It will be so nice to have someone else in the lab with me!"

"So I'm the first?" Nessie asked, shuffling along.

"No, I'm the head of the Alchemists." Zarina corrected, smirking. "But you'll be the first fairy to really share my talent. Come on, you'll be staying with me for the time being. _Someone_ has been insisting that there was not need for an Alchemist section, so we'll both just share my place."

Nessie nodded, eyes still darting around. She was docile, fallowing Zarina to the edge of the pixie dust tree, and never fully matching her guild-leader's pace. They passed the trunk, and they passed the Dustkeeper's abodes. "Is this it?" Nessie asked, curiously watching the bustling stacks of houses.

"No, silly." Zarina said, "That's where we would have lived if we were dust-keepers."

"And we're Alchemists."  
"Exactly." Zarina said, smirking. "and the Tinker's nook is about ten meters to the west from here. They live in the Spring section- and that's the direction that we're heading, even though we don't live there."

"So, our place is somewhere in spring? Why not live closer to the dustkeepers?"

"Oh well, that was actually kind of a funny story." Zarina said, trying to laugh it off. When Nessie kept looking, she caved. "Alright. Before Alchemy got recognized as a talent, I had a little mishap with an experiment I was doing on my own. Even though I've gotten our talent recognized, I haven't dared to push for a less isolated place to live. As a matter of fact, I'm lucky that I even got any help for my abode, what with the circumstances that building it caused. It has a full six rooms. There's two bedrooms, a kitchen aria, and there's a room just with chairs and cushions. There's a table in one of the other rooms- that's where we'll do experiments. The remaining room is just for storing things. That is the most crucial room, as it could cause any number of disasters if it were allowed to spill hap-hazardly."

"Disasters?" Nessie asked, a laugh starting to bubble up within herself. "Like what?"

"Oh, well… you see, I have a bunch of talent boosting varieties in here." Zarina said, looking at storage room in guild. "Well, one time I tripped. Well, I have tripped more than one time, actually. Fine, I spilled Garden Talent booting dust on some sprout, and then it formed a vine of epic proportions."

As Zarina opened her eyes, shuddering in the memory of what had happened in the aftermath of the disaster, she startled. Somewhere in the recounting, Nessie had wandered closer, and now their noses were almost touching.

"Tell me," Nessie asked, barely a whisper, "Did it knock over any houses?"

Zarina barely nodded, taking a step back. Nessie only pressed forwards. "Did it carry anything from it's starting place to beyond?"

A slightly bigger nod. "Did it knock over the dust depo?" Nessie asked, taking another foot forward and keeping a firm grip on Zarina's hands. "Did it choke the tree? Make it impossible to garden around? How long did it take to dispose of it?"

"I don't know that, ok?" Zarina half shouted, wings quivering. "I didn't exactly stick around long enough to find out."

"Hmm." Nessie gently let go of her hold. "So, did you run away or get kicked out? This happened before Alchemy was its own talent, I'm assuming."

"I got kicked out… and then left? I was panicking, ok! I really don't know whose idea it was for me to leave Pixie hallow."

"So, we can do potentially volatile experiments outside of pixie hallow?" Nessie asked. Hesitant, Zarina nodded.

"Wonderful." Nessie said, smiling bright. A little giggle did escape her, and she really did look more comfortable than she'd ever been before in her short life. "I think I really am going to like it here."


End file.
